The second and upper floor has four windows, one in each face. These are round-headed, quite plain, flat-sided, of about 4 feet opening and 8 feet high to the springing. The three floors seem to be,—the basement, 15 feet high; the first or main floor, 30 feet; and the upper floor, 15 feet. The floors were all of timber. There is no visible fireplace, nor do there seem to be any mural chambers or galleries. The walls at the base are 8 feet thick. The staircase communicated with each floor, and with the roof. The line of the lower floor cut off the head of the original entrance doorway, as at Chepstow.
The masonry throughout is of a very sound and solid, though of a rude description. It is evidently original, and does not appear ever to have been repaired or even pointed. It is of rubble, the stones being pretty much as they came from the quarry, of all shapes, but rarely containing more than a foot cube. The work is roughly but decidedly coursed, with a slight tendency to the herring-bone pattern. The joints are very open, and the mortar has been very freely used. The quoins and window-dressings are of a tufaceous ashlar, with wide joints.
It is difficult to form any safe conclusion as to the plan or area of the castle, of which this tower was certainly the keep. No doubt it lay to the north-east and east, where the ground forms a table-land a little above the keep level, and where there are traces of some rather extensive earthworks. There is a short piece of curtain wall projecting a few yards from the south-east angle of the keep, and pointing eastwards. It looks of early masonry, but of rather later date than the keep, against which it is built without bond. It is about 25 feet high. According to this evidence the south and west faces, at the least, must have been the exterior, which, considering the arcades on their faces, and the position of the entrance-door, is curious. Probably the other end of the curtain abutted upon the north-east angle, but if so it did not bond, and has been destroyed, leaving no trace of its presence. This keep stands in three separate premises, two of which are, or rather were when these notes were taken, jealously closed. The only entrance is by the modern door, which was fastened and the key judiciously mislaid; nor, at that time, was there a ladder to be found within reach of the tower. The garden containing the earthworks, and within which probably stood the hall and lodgings, was attached to a private lunatic asylum. It is much to be desired that the Kent Archæological Society should take this curious tower in hand, and obtain proper plans and elevations of so very remarkable a building, with a good photograph of its masonry.
THE KEEP OF MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
ALTHOUGH the size and extent of Middleham Castle are but moderate for the figure it has made in local story, and the rank and power of the succession of great barons who built, augmented, and have inhabited it, it is in itself a remarkable building, and presents much of antiquarian interest. It is placed on the southern edge of the town of Middleham, and a little above it. Its immediate position presents no great natural advantages, but for the general defence of Wensley Dale, it is not ill chosen, standing between the Yore and the Cover, about a mile and a half above the junction of the two streams.
In plan Middleham is rectangular, composed of a keep about 100 feet north and south, by 80 feet east and west, and to the base of its parapet about 55 feet high, which is placed in the centre of an enceinte, also rectangular, 240 feet north and south, by 190 feet east and west, so that the area of its only ward is but limited. The enceinte is a curtain wall, about 30 feet high. At its north-west and south-east angles, it has rectangular towers of slight external projection, which rise above the curtain. Its south-west angle is capped by a drum tower of three stages, and on the north face, but at its north-east angle, is the gatehouse, rectangular, of slight projection, but four stages high, basement included. The east curtain has been destroyed. Upon the south and west curtains are many exterior projections, buttresses, and near the centre of each a rectangular tower. The domestic buildings were chiefly placed against the curtains on the north, west, and south sides, and thus the ward is reduced to a mere passage between these buildings and the keep.
The gatehouse is about 25 feet deep by 50 feet broad. It has in its exterior front a central portal, round-headed, beneath a pointed arch of relief. This is flanked by buttresses, 2 feet broad by 1 foot deep, and the adjacent angles of the building are supported by similar buttresses, two being set on each. At the first story these pass into a single buttress, which caps the angle,—a pleasing arrangement, giving variety to the outline. The entrance vault, like the gateway, is round-headed, with ribs for doors, and it has a single portcullis groove at its inner end. It is all of one date, and in the Decorated style. This gatehouse, and the buildings of the ward generally, are Decorated, and require far more examination than the writer has been able to bestow upon them.
The Keep is reinforced at the four angles by broad, flat-capping buttresses, of variable breadth and projection, and which, no doubt, rose above the battlement into rectangular turrets. The buttress on the north-east angle has a breadth of 26 feet on the north, and a projection of 7 feet, and to the east a breadth of 16 feet, and a projection of 1 foot. It contains the chamber communicating with the battlement of the outer gate of the fore-building, and below is solid. The buttress on the north-west angle has to the north a breadth of 22 feet, and a projection of 3 feet, and to the west a breadth of 12 feet, and depth of 1 foot. On the south-west angle the breadth of the west face is 14 feet, and of the south 11 feet, and the depth of each is 1 foot.
The south-east angle, as at Rochester, contains the staircase. It has no projection on the east face, being covered by the fore-building. On the south its breadth is 20 feet, and its depth 6 feet. This alone preserves the remains of a turret above the battlements. Excepting the stair-turret, the angles of the keep seem solid below, though worked into chambers on the first floor.